| Our DEAD GIVEWAY 2006 Contest 1st Place Winner: JEOPARDY
FIRST LINE TAKEN FROM COCK OF THE WALK BY WENDY LAING He fought for breath, his heart pounding fast. Henry picked up his pace. Two hundred pounds on a five-seven frame was a load to carry, especially at fifty-seven years of age. Despite the December breeze, his palms began to sweat. He tried to calm himself by humming the Jeopardy theme music in his mind. He answered a make believe question, or questioned a make believe answer, Who is Margaret Thatcher? Correct, he could hear Alex Trebek say. Henry, the board is yours. Ok, Alex, I'll take Hodge Podge for five hundred. Henry smiled. The young woman thirty yards in front of him had no idea she was being followed. No idea that he'd followed her forty-three times in the last two months. He knew her ATM code and cell phone number. He knew she hated cucumbers, knew she had a Chihuahua named Fife because she thought the tiny dog looked like Don Knotts. A killer was roaming the streets of Baltimore. There were four victims, all women, all strangled with a leather strap. It was on the news, in the papers, on the radio. According to the profile in the Sun, the killer was a loner type, white male, handsome, athletic, between the ages of twenty-five and forty-two. Henry knew better. He shuffled through a busy intersection and checked his watch. It was seven-twenty seven. He felt inside his coat, nervously unsnapping the strap on his semi-automatic Berretta Tomcat. He moved his hand to the front pocket on his flannel shirt. He patted the thing there, something he'd much rather use than the gun. Something he'd used time and time again. It felt like an old friend. He wondered how soon it would be until he retired it. The lady made a right. Her name was Dana Reed. She taught English at the University of Maryland. I 'll take English Lit for seven hundred, Alex. Henry smiled again. Her short, bob-cut hair wasn't really red--cheap dye job. She wore a conservative khaki skirt and a blue, L.L. Bean fleece jacket. Henry had seen her earlier in the wine shop, so he knew there was a thin white blouse under her fleece. Henry found her attractive, but quickly shook it off. Smart, pretty. Too bad, he thought--what a waste. Henry had lots of pictures of her, more than a dozen from the gym. She worked out just about every day. On the days she didn't lift weights, she ran. He had a picture of her running through the National Mall in D.C. She was strong and had a good two inches on Henry. He knew he had to be careful with this one. She ascended the five stairs to the lobby of her building. Henry had dressed up like a homeless man one day and asked her for a dollar. She ignored him. She swiped her security card and went inside. Henry had since acquired a card to the building. He let the door shut so she wouldn't notice him. Henry pulled the card from his back pocket and hustled up the stairs, swiped it, and entered the building. A warm rush of air surrounded him, and his cold fingers began to tingle. He reached into his coat again, feeling for his gun, another nervous habit he'd developed: the feeling that somehow the small pistol would just vanish. He felt the cold metal on his fingers and his heart sped up. Henry saw Dana standing by the elevator and waited until it opened. She entered and pushed the button for her floor, seven. The doors were closing. Henry jammed his arm between them just before they latched. "Wow," he said. "Just did make it." Dana stood silent, her wide, blue eyes gazing at the lighted circles above the doors. As the ancient elevator groaned upward, Henry went through the victims in his mind: a nurse named Hilda; a Yoga instructor named Vicki; a stock broker named Farrah; and a cop named Barb. The cop. The damned cop. Henry bit his lip. He focused. Ding. The elevator doors struggled to open as if they'd been welded shut. Dana squeezed out before the doors were fully retracted. Henry came up behind her quickly. She looked over her shoulder and jammed the key into her door lock and plowed into her apartment. Henry swung his foot out and the door bounced off the side of his shoe. Henry thrust the door open and grabbed Dana by the back of her jacket, reaching into his coat pocket. "Who are you?!" Dana shrieked. She struggled to free herself, screaming, "Help, someone help me!" Fife ran into the room and began yapping between intermittent growls. The tick-tack of his paws on the hardwood mixed with the jangle of his collar. Henry reached into his jacket. Instead of his gun, Henry clutched the front pocket of his flannel. The thing was bulky. He pulled it out and held it to her face, shoving her to the floor. "Dana Reed," he spoke calmly. "You have the right to remain silent." Henry flashed his badge then affixed it to his flannel shirt pocket. He finished reciting the Miranda rights as he pulled a set of cuffs from the back of his belt. He heard sirens below on the street. His backup had arrived. Took them long enough, he thought. Several lengths of leather were later found on a coat hangar in Dana's closet that matched the fibers on the victims' necks. A female serial killer--killing other women. The chief had ridiculed his theory. But Henry persisted with his investigation. When he'd found two different traces of lipstick on one of the victims, he'd become suspicious. Henry unraveled the crime when he'd uncovered a detail that linked the murdered women: they'd all taken Reed's class at UMD. I'll take Women's Studies for a thousand, Alex.
Rick Deal is a graduate of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina with a degree in English. He is a husband, mortgage broker, and self professed chess-geek, and enjoys playing guitar, writing, and cooking. Rick lives in Hickory, NC with his wife, a dog and a cat. |